In the coating of components or articles which require a coating to be applied to the surface thereof, techniques in the art include discharge and acceleration related techniques which use acceleration of ions or the like.
Within the art, by way of example, mechanical watch components or micro parts typically formed from metal based, silicon based and nickel phosphorous (Ni—P) based materials, may require coating.
Due to high precision and substrate material characteristics, conventional machining and electroplating on metal parts typically cannot meet the critical requirements for high precision and non-conductive based micro parts during fabrication.
Such micro parts can be fabricated by Micro-electromechanical System (MEMS) technology such as Deep Reactive-Ion Etching (DRIE) and Ultraviolet Lithography (Lithography), and Galvanoformung, Abformung (UV-LIGA). Due to the limitation of production capacity and surface finishing requirements for such techniques, methodologies such as sputtering, e-beam or the like may be used in micro part deposition. Within the art, sputtering based deposition techniques are used in MEMS fabrication. These may be controlled through the adjustment of power, DC/RF switch, duration and pressure, for example on film thickness, width, and uniformity control.
For conventional sputtering type deposition, it is typically performed under high value of vacuum, and samples or articles to be coated are fixed to a holder device by way of mechanisms such pressure type fixtures, prior to application of sputtering and introduction to a vacuum chamber or the like.
In such processes of the art, deficiencies exist including the presence of some uncoated blind areas on the samples or articles that pressure fixtures may cover during the sputtering deposition process, and that may cause non-uniformity of coating surface on the back side from the sputtering source. Further, any film or coating may be scratched off relatively easily through hard contact between contact film and pressing fixtures.
For components, samples and articles including those silicon based, difficulty may be experienced using deposition methods of the prior art for the purpose of accurate thickness control, including in nano-scale, as in some application all surfaces of micro parts may be required to be deposited with thin film simultaneously.
In other applications, it is required to apply very thin coatings to articles, such as articles formed from metals or metal alloys, whereby such coatings must withstand at least a nominal amount of abrasive impact without the costings being abraded or worn off the article.
Again, in such processes as known in the art, providing such coatings which may be aesthetic or functional and uniformity of thickness, often wear off, debond, or are of a non-uniform thickness